Skewed Cowl Collared top

The other weekend I want away for a 3 day sewing retreat with the Australian Sewing Guild at The Tops Conference Centre.

I had taken a top that was cut out which I wanted some help with fitting and then fabric for another 3 tops.

On the 2nd evening I pulled out this camel coloured knit which I purchased during my US trip back in 2011 and had plans to make the cowl neck version of KS 3740 my TNT knit top. Unfortunately there wasn't enough fabric for the cowl from the pattern, but as this fabric had fantastic drape I really wanted a cowl neck of some sort.

You can see the fabric on the table.

Thankfully one of the ladies in the group had brought along her copy of Knits for Real People by Palmer Pletsch (my copy was in my bookcase at home) and I found the instructions on how to draft a skewed cowl collar (wow I just found this link) which as long as I didn't want it as deep and happy for an extra seam it worked perfectly for the amount of fabric I had.

The best bit I was finished by lunchtime the next day, very happy indeed.

How I wore it to work the other week.

Now to get photos of the other two tops I made prior to this one!


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2017 Stash Out: 6.1 m
2017 Stash In: 4 m

Vale Roscoe

This is so hard to write.

Over the years my long term readers have come to know my beautiful boy Roscoe.

He came into our lives as a 9 week old pup, our fur baby in January 2004.

Since then he has been my constant companion, always by my side, we have trained together and even drove around Sydney doing Agility training which he still loved to do at our local Off Leash Area

Roscoe was very accustomed to seeing me taking photos for my blog in the backyard for many years and then for some reason at 6 years of age he decided it was time for him to be included where he managed to be in a lot of my photos from then on. 

Our mornings started with the alarm going off and then being bombarded by Roscoe until we got out of bed to go for our morning walk. This was the first part of a morning ritual, breakfast and coffee (frothed milk) with a possible yogurt container to lick and play with were just the mornings. Around 5pm or when we got home another walk and play time was had before dinner and then cuddles until we all went to bed.

He loved catching ball, playing soccer, chasing and catching the Frisbee and of course, a stick was always a great play toy.

One of the treats Roscoe really enjoyed was a trip to the beach playing in the surf and rolling in the sand.

It took days to get all that sand out!

Last Christmas we realised Roscoe had lost a lot of strength in his back legs when he wasn't interested in playing in the surf or even capable of having a good roll in the sand.  He had also developed some breathing difficulties.

Last week it all came to a head, Roscoe struggled to walk even half a block without rushing home very distressed. A trip to the vet confirmed our worst fears and we had to say goodbye.

He will be missed!

Me Made May 2017 - Another Year

has passed and I do find that May does make me look at my wardrobe in a different way, not just grab the combinations I am familiar with, but to try and change them up and wear garment combinations that I haven't or don't normally wear.

One of the garments that I was very pleased to wear was my couture dress which was finished to wear on Day 5 but at this stage that is the only photo I have managed to get so I promise a lot more information and photos will appear.

An item that Jean from Sew Jean Margaret talked about were her merino layers and as a cold frog this is something that I need to look into further.  In fact I know I have the pale coloured merino in the stash and my TNT knit t-shirt will be the perfect base.

Once again May has highlighted that I need more tops, either to replace those that are finally getting too old or plain tops so I can wear my denim jacket and those two jackets from Dilliander which now the weather is getting colder will certainly come in handy.

In part I did get 3 tops made in May, one striped and two plain so I am on my way to fixing the top issue.

Finally if you would like to see any of the photos in more detail, here is a link to my Flicker album and I also now have in instagram account petitieandsewing  where I posted my daily outfits.